Reduction of noise generation in rotating blade stages has long been sought by designers of axial flow compressors and gas turbine engines. In an axial compressor, air flows sequentially through a plurality of rotating and stationary airfoils, where it is accelerated and turned for the purpose of increasing its pressure.
The air flow exiting the rotating airfoils in an axial flow compressor defines a series of rotating velocity fluctuations at the entry plane of the downstream stationary airfoil row as the result of the moving wakes formed by the upstream airfoils. The wake velocity fluctuations striking the downstream stationary airfoils cause the whining, tonal noise which is especially prevalent during takeoff and approach for aircraft propulsion gas turbine engines. Stringent noise restrictions for airports and their surroundings have resulted in increased efforts by engine and aircraft manufacturers to reduce or eliminate noise generation by their products.
One technique for noise suppression is the employment of anti-sound generation whereby unwanted noise is eliminated by the generation of a cancelling sound pattern which is out of phase with the unwanted noise. This concept has proved difficult to use in practical application for the cancellation of complex noise signatures.
Due to the magnitude of the blade-wake interaction noise, as well as the complexity of the many acoustic modes which are generated by this interaction, prior art methods of gross field noise cancellation by the use of anti-sound generators and transducers are expected to be cumbersome and ineffective. What is needed is a simple arrangement of anti-sound generators and controls.